January 2010 marked the first full year of the operation of a Beth Myriam in Greece. Readers of the Messages who are members of the TLIG prayer groups, with the help of the Blessed Mother, have established a different kind of Beth Myriam activity here in Athens.
In our country, the idea of “Monthly Little Pilgrimages” was born of the need to find a solution to the problem of sustaining economic resources to support our own Beth Myriam. Once we worked out what we could gain from every “Monthly Little Pilgrimage”, the concept of “A Beth Myriam in the Road” was formulated. Till now, we have been unable to find an affordable place which would meet the conditions required to accommodate a Beth Myriam.
At the beginning, we got information from a public institution for six families (10 children and 6 adults) that had many urgent needs, were living in different districts of Athens and from January 2009, we initiated our own small Beth Myriam activity. Thus, at the end of each month, TLIG volunteers buy food provisions for each family from a major supermarket and, using their own means of transport, deliver them door to door. As well as food stuff, they include clothing, cooking utensils, blankets and whatever else is needed for the functioning of a normal household.
Buying food for each family
With the help of Our Lord, a year after, the number of people we help has now doubled and, we are currently supporting 32 people – 20 children and 12 adults.
6 from the 8 children of a BM family
Every month, we organize a small pilgrimage and everyone invites friends from both within TLIG and elsewhere. We have found that the joy of those who participate in these small excursions to monasteries and churches does not compare with the joy of the volunteers who take the food parcels from door to door every month. They are greeted with enormous gratitude and wide smiles on the faces of children and adults alike.
We start early in the morning so we can join Mass during the mini pilgrimages.
The atmosphere is always joyful and every time we stop for a cup of coffee we all become one! Our conversations are memorable and we always make a new friend…
We thank Christ and the Blessed Mother for this harvest of self-offering and love and we hope in the near future, with God’s grace, to significantly increase the number of people cared for by the Athens Beth Myriam.
